Background: Over 90 million Americans suffer from advanced illness (AI) and spend their last days of life in critical care units receiving costly, unwanted, aggressive medical care.
Objective: Evaluate the impact of a specialized care model in medical/surgical units for hospitalized geriatric patients and patients with complex care requirements where designated AI beds align care with patient's wishes/goals, minimize aggressive interventions, and influence efficient resource utilization.
Design: US based multi-facility retrospective, longitudinal descriptive study of screened positive AI patients in AI Beds (N = 1,237) from 3 facilities from 2015 to 2017.
Results: Patient outcomes included 60% referrals to AI beds from ICU, a decrease of 39-49% in average ICU LOS, a 23% reduction of AI bed patient expirations, 9.0% referrals to hospice, and projected cost savings of $4,361.66/patient, US dollars.
Conclusion: Allocating AI beds to deliver care to AI patients resulted in a decreased cost of care by reducing overall hospital LOS, mortality, and efficient use of both critical care and hospital resources.
Keywords: advanced illness; care model; goal concordant care; goals of care; palliation; resource utilization.